My new website

[nekhbet]

Hi,
I have a passion for aircraft and some time ago I decided to make a gallery including all the aircraft that were ever built.
Here is the URL : http://www.aircraft-list.com
I will be glad to hear your opinion about the layout and about the website in general.
Thank you very much
Best Regards
Sorin

[bonehead]

Very nice site, its clean and the layout is very good.

[gwyneth]

Great idea, always inspirational to see people tackle big jobs.

If it includes gliders, are you going to include the ones from the 19th century?

[nekhbet]

Thanks for the comments , I hope to hear more and more (bad and good things).
Gwyneth ... I think it will also include gliders at a later time. Now I'm trying to add most of the aircraft used in World War 2.
Best wishes
Sorin

[JohnBoy]

I like it. I'm not really into planes, but found it quite engaging.

My Dad will love it. Are you going to include helicopters? My father used to design engine parts for Rolls royce 'copter engines.


Good luck!

John

[bewhite]

Originally Posted by nekhbet

Thanks for the comments , I hope to hear more and more (bad and good things).

I don't think this website is good. Sorry for my english but I hope you will understand me. These are my reasons:
1) Links. All links on the page should be underlined. This detail will tell user: "This is URL. You can click it and then you will be moved to other page." Don't try to surprise users. They will come to you site if they want to see planes but not the HTML tricks.
2) None yet. If you have no information then just remove this from the page. Why user have to see all these "None yet"?
3) Italic fonts. The only reason for Italic font usage have to be the attempt of placing emphasis on text. Just use the normal font because it is easier to read. The similar is the situation with Bold font with one exception. Bold words will be readed before all other words of paragraph.
4) Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. Do you have optional fields on your contact form? You have not. Than tell user something like "all fields are mandatory" and remove all asteriks from form.

[nekhbet]

Hi,
Bewhite ... thank you very much and don't worry about your English, mine isn't perfect also (I'm not a native English speaker).

1)all the links (with the exception of the top menu) are now underlined.
2)I'm planning on adding aircraft only with full information, in 2-3h I will fill the missing info for all the existing aircraft so there will be no more "There is no ... yet! Help us here!"
3)i use italic font mostly on already visited links, bold font is mostly used for short-aircraft-description and for titles so they stand up.
4) you are perfectly right, I have corrected it on both forms ('contact' and 'suggest us')

JohnBoy ... for now I plan only on adding aircraft but, If I get some help I can setup a new subdomain for helicopters.


Thank again

[WEG0508]

bewhite makes some very valid points but I disagree with the statement that the website is not very good.

When I view a website, I am generally more interested in how it appeals to me. I realize that most of us are not professional developers working for high dollars on e-commerce and fortune 500 company sites. These are the folks who's work should really be judged under the microscope (especially if you are the corporate IS manager paying for these services).

I enjoy viewing airplanes at airports and on the web. When I visited your site, I noticed the little problems here and there, but I also thoroughly enjoyed my visit. So much so that it outweighed the problems that I encounted by a wide margin.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by WEG0508

bewhite makes some very valid points but I disagree with the statement that the website is not very good.

When I view a website, I am generally more interested in how it appeals to me. I realize that most of us are not professional developers working for high dollars on e-commerce and fortune 500 company sites. These are the folks who's work should really be judged under the microscope (especially if you are the corporate IS manager paying for these services).

But bewhite's points were exactly the kinds of things that make websites much better and that generally we learn from people paid a lot to discuss and teach them (whether a single corporation does the paying or they communicate these points on the internet, having consulted to many corporations).

Friends, family, and people who share interests can provide compliments and large-scale criticism ("it's hard to read that light green type on the purple background"). But points such as bewhite's were really good user interface issues that might take months or years for the OP to discover on his own.

For bewhite to have spent the time it took to notice those issues and to post about it was far more thoughtful than what I see as his accidental tactlessness may have seemed. He made some very practical points.

What would be the point of seeking input here if people didn't want to receive it?

[WEG0508]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

But bewhite's points were exactly the kinds of things that make websites much better and that generally we learn from people paid a lot to discuss and teach them (whether a single corporation does the paying or they communicate these points on the internet, having consulted to many corporations).

Friends, family, and people who share interests can provide compliments and large-scale criticism ("it's hard to read that light green type on the purple background"). But points such as bewhite's were really good user interface issues that might take months or years for the OP to discover on his own.

For bewhite to have spent the time it took to notice those issues and to post about it was far more thoughtful than what I see as his accidental tactlessness may have seemed. He made some very practical points.

What would be the point of seeking input here if people didn't want to receive it?

Exactly, that is why if you would notice, I stated that bewhite makes some very valid points. But no, I am not going to agree with the statement that the website is not good.

[bewhite]

Originally Posted by WEG0508

Exactly, that is why if you would notice, I stated that bewhite makes some very valid points. But no, I am not going to agree with the statement that the website is not good.

Actually, I don't understand what you are talking about when you say about "good" or "bad" website. There are some rules of website design. If webmaster wants to create handly and usual user interface then he(she) have to use these rules. If he don't want then he can use everything he wants and everywhere he can imagine.

[ufopsi.com]

Originally Posted by bewhite

I don't think this website is good. Sorry for my english but I hope you will understand me. These are my reasons:
1) Links. All links on the page should be underlined. This detail will tell user: "This is URL. You can click it and then you will be moved to other page." Don't try to surprise users. They will come to you site if they want to see planes but not the HTML tricks.
2) None yet. If you have no information then just remove this from the page. Why user have to see all these "None yet"?
3) Italic fonts. The only reason for Italic font usage have to be the attempt of placing emphasis on text. Just use the normal font because it is easier to read. The similar is the situation with Bold font with one exception. Bold words will be readed before all other words of paragraph.
4) Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. Do you have optional fields on your contact form? You have not. Than tell user something like "all fields are mandatory" and remove all asteriks from form.

1) You may also differentiate links from common text with colour and bold. What you say is not wrong at all, but I think it's not that bad if a link is not underlined.
2) I agree.
3) Again, agreed.
4) Good point. How do you make fields as mandatory, btw?

[nekhbet]

Originally Posted by ufopsi.com

1) You may also differentiate links from common text with colour and bold. What you say is not wrong at all, but I think it's not that bad if a link is not underlined.
2) I agree.
3) Again, agreed.
4) Good point. How do you make fields as mandatory, btw?

4. I do them through PHP, just try to submit something without having all the fields completed. The whole website is PHP-based but all this is masked because of .htaccess files

gwyneth "What would be the point of seeking input here if people didn't want to receive it?" ... exactly , I want to see input here.

And by the way ... are the colors (links, background) ok?

Thank you

Sorin

[bewhite]

Originally Posted by ufopsi.com

1) You may also differentiate links from common text with colour and bold. What you say is not wrong at all, but I think it's not that bad if a link is not underlined.

Generally, you are right. Web design has no strict laws. You can mark you links in any way you want, but, it seems to me, every user that will see underlined text will understand the fact it is the link. Much more users will not understand this fact if you will mark link using font and color only because several other things are usually marked in the same way: titles, subtitles, emphased text and so on.

[ufopsi.com]

Good point. IMHO, a link should be clearly different from common text.

[nekhbet]

I have got some time in the last 2 weeks and I added a little more aircraft and some new options (in case someone is interested)

[Vrindavan]

add link spacing between paragraghs would be nice

[auhsoj]

Just make sure that you add a static HTML page containing permalinks to everything on your site if you want it indexed by search engines. Search engines do not index dynamic content pages - so be sure to go through your entire web site and lay down a track to access all of these pages that is static and can be accessed by every single page on your web site.

[nekhbet]

Thanks man,
I already did this on this page : http://www.aircraft-list.com/list_all_aircraft.html
Best wishes
Sorin